The Stone Soup

Hello, everyone.

    The story that I am about to tell you is of a young man who outwitted his miserly aunt in a very hilarious manner.

    Read on and find out.

The Stone Soup

    Ben was a young man. He was married had very nice and beautiful young lady called Rose. Now as it happened that one day Rose got a call from her sister that her mother was not well. Since her mother was in the village she decided to go and see her.

    “Ben I got a call from my sister my mother is not feeling well,” she told her husband. “Can I go and see her? I will be back in a day or two depending on her condition.”

    “Oh, you just go,” Ben replied. “I will look after myself. You don’t have to worry about that.”

    “Are you sure?” Rose asked. “You can’t go to Aunt Jemima. She is such a miser she won’t even offer you a glass of water.”

    “That is where you are wrong,” he said. “That is exactly where I intend to go and have my first lunch.”

    “What?” Rose was surprised. “How on Earth will you get her to invite you to lunch?”

     “Oh, you let me worry about that,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. I know exactly how to handle her.”

     Rose looked at him. She saw the twinkle in eye and knew that he was up to something.

    “Ben, don’t do anything to embarrass yourself, please,” she said, looking worried.

    “You just go,” he said, laughing. “I know what I am doing.”

    And so Rose went away.

    At about 12 o’clock he went to his Aunt Jemima’s place and knocked on the door. His aunt opened the door and was not exactly pleased to see a visitor at almost lunch hour.

    Ben greeted his aunt and she invited him inside reluctantly. He sat down and soon all his cousins came to greet him. They sat there talking for a while. Then, he dropped the bomb that his wife had travelled and he intended to stay for lunch at her place. All his cousins and his aunt looked at each other and did not know what to say.

    “Don’t worry,” said Ben, “I have decided to cook my own meal today. You don’t have to give me everything. I have brought my own thing to cook.”

    “Really?” asked his aunt. “But I don’t see anything in your hands.”

    “That’s the magic part,” he said. “All I need is some fire and a pot with some water in it.”

     His aunt brought the pot with water and gave it to Ben who immediately went outside at the back of the house and put it on the burning fire. Then, he did a very strange thing. He took out a pebble, washed it and put it in the water. Everybody looked on in amazement.

    “Don’t look so surprised,” Ben said, laughing. “I am going to make stone soup today. Haven’t you ever had a stone soup?”

    “Stone soup?” his aunt cried. “I have never heard of it in all my life.”

    “You haven’t?” he said, pretending to look surprised. “Well, you will taste it today.”

    Soon, the water began to bubble and Ben tasted the water.

    “You know,” he said. “This needs a little bit of salt, that is, if you have it.”

    “Of course, we have salt,” replied one of his cousins and brought him some.

    Ben added some to the boiling water and tasted it.

    “You know,” he said. “If there was a little bit of cabbage in it, it would taste very nice.”

    And so one of his cousins brought a cabbage and he cut that and put it in the water. Soon Ben was asking for an onion and some potatoes and other vegetables. He was provided with all that and pretty soon there was a very delicious soup ready.

    Everybody was given a serving. They all ate and were quite full. Then, one of his cousins got the stone.

    “What shall I do with this stone, Ben?” he asked.

    “Give that to me,” he said. “It’s my magic stone. You saw how it turned into a full meal.”

    Everybody agreed that it certainly had.

    The next day, Rose arrived home. Ben told her the whole story and she laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.

    “Where did you get such a marvelous idea?” she asked, wiping her tears.

    “Oh, I had read a story once of a soldier in East Germany,” he said, “who had pulled the same stunt. So I thought why not try that on Aunt Jemima?

She is always demanding things from us but she never wants to part with anything of hers.”

    Then, he showed her the stone and she started to laugh all over again.

    Ben just grinned at her.